Stalking

And the experience of being stalked.

4 min readAug 28, 2014

Once, at a bar, two guys expressed shock that both myself and my friend had stalkers. “Did you meet at stalkers anonymous?”

Some facts:

In the US alone, estimates run between 3 and 6 million — or more — people are stalked each year.
Women are are nearly 3 times as likely as men to be stalked.
Only one in 10 victims are stalked by a stranger.
One in four stalking victims report that a form of cyberstalking was used against them.
60% of victims don’t report the stalking to police.

It’s something that I didn’t really publicize for quite a while, mostly because I moved on from the incident by forcibly forgetting most of the details. In fact, most of my friends only know about it because years after the initial stalking, he tried to stalk me once more on LinkedIn [disclaimer: I am currently a Software Engineer at Linkedin], which led to my winning hackday project “No Mo’ Stalk[in]” that eventually became an actual feature on LinkedIn. Turning lemons into lemonade.

But then he died. I was conflicted. I felt sad, then relieved, then guilty for feeling relieved. The level of guilt got bad enough that I took a trip down memory lane.

I’m trying to remember the moment I realized I was being stalked. In my case, my stalker had invented a relationship in his head. It took a couple of Facebook relationship requests and strange messages for me to check my other email account. I was horrified. For months, maybe longer, he had been interpreting everything I said, did, posted online, as secret messages meant just for him. I sent a firmly worded email explaining that we were just friends and were not in a relationship. He responded that of course we were “friends ;-) in a relationship”. I blocked him on social media.

The situation deteriorated. Sometimes he would have moments of clarity where he would email me and apologize. Then he started contacting mutual friends. He thought I was controlling his internet, manipulating his msn homepage. He discovered when I was visiting home, and started calling my cell and home as soon as I landed.

The situation reached it’s peak of ridiculousness when I not only had to run away from him while I was visiting my alma mater, he had a fit on his dorm and raved that “they” were interfering with our communication. He actually physically injured someone, which is when the university finally stepped in.

It’s remarkable how much I’d blocked out of my memory. It must have been a self defense mechanism. Over the years, it never really stopped. Turns out, he was schizophrenic, an incurable mental illness. While he was on medication things improved, but then he stopped taking the medication. One year, as it got closer and closer to my birthday, he sent more and more emails, culminating with multiple emails on the day of.

There’s some part of me that always wondered if I’d done something to allow this to happen. Maybe I shouldn’t have smiled that time. The answer here is no. It is not our fault. Then there’s the concern that maybe I’ve been too harsh. I got criticized for making a hard and fast rule of no more communication. I learned years later that I was actually correct — if you are being stalked, it is essential that you do not engage in any form of communication with your stalker. It’s a difficult situation for friends and family of the stalker, because they empathize with the stalker — but this can’t be at the expense of the victim, especially if the stalker is mentally ill. I get it, they’re concerned for their child/friend/relative, but always remember who the victim is.

I write this today because of my grief. I’m sad that I’m more suspicious of letting people into my life. I’m sad that I lost a childhood friend. I’m sad that some of my friends didn’t seem to forgive me for completely cutting off communication. I’m sad that after all these years, I’ve had to deal with this again. I’m sad that one of my closest friends not only has a stalker, but has had to file a restraining order against him. Our justice system is not on the side of the victims. Filing a restraining order is expensive, long, illogical, and exposes sensitive information to the stalker. I’m sad that people think that it’s somehow flattering to have a stalker. It’s not romantic, it’s not funny, it is traumatic. But most of all, I mourn for my loss of innocence and peace of mind. Being stalked is not an experience that ever truly leaves you.

Stalking

And the experience of being stalked.

Written by kamilah taylor